The Buddhist Emperor, Ashoka

Ashoka's Empire. Click to enlarge.

The second Mauryan emperor, Bindusara, ruled for twenty-five years. He warred occasionally, reinforcing
his nominal authority within India, and acquiring the title "Slayer of Enemies." Then
in the year 273 BCE, he was succeeded by his son Ashoka, who in his first eight years of rule did what was expected of him:
he looked after the affairs of state and extended his rule where he could.

Around the year 260 BCE, Ashoka fought great battles and imposed his rule on people
southward along the eastern coast of India – an area called Kalinga. The sufferings
created by the war disturbed Ashoka. He found relief in Buddhism and became
an emperor with values that differed from those of his grandfather. He was a Buddhist lay member and went on a 256-day pilgrimage to
Buddhist holy places in northern India. Buddhism benefited from the association
with state power that Hinduism had enjoyed – and that Christianity would enjoy
under Constantine the Great.

Like the Hebrew Jeroboam and other devout kings, Ashoka was no revolutionary. But there were changes. In the years to come,
Ashoka mixed his Buddhism with material concerns that served the Buddha's original
desire to see suffering among people mitigated: Ashoka had wells dug,
irrigation canals and roads constructed. He had rest houses built along
roads, hospitals built, public gardens planted and medicinal herbs grown. But
Ashoka maintained his army, and he maintained the secret police and network
of spies that he had inherited as a part of his extensive and powerful bureaucracy.

As was common among kings, Ashoka announced his intention to "look kindly"
upon all his subjects. He kept his hold over Kalinga, and he did not allow the thousands of people
abducted from Kalinga to return there. He offered the people
of Kalinga a victor's conciliation, erecting a monument in Kalinga which read:

All men are my children, and I, the king, forgive what can
be forgiven.

Ashoka converted his foreign policy from expansionism to that of coexistence
and peace with his neighbors – the avoidance of additional conquests making
his empire easier to administer. In keeping with his Buddhism he announced that
he was determined to ensure the safety, peace of mind and happiness of all "animate
beings" in his realm. He announced that he would now strive for conquest only
in matters of the human spirit and the spread of "right conduct" among people.
And he warned other powers that he was not only compassionate but also powerful.

An imagined Ashoka the Great

Ashoka's wish for peace was undisturbed by famines or
natural disasters. His rule did not suffer from onslaught
from any great migration. During his reign, no neighboring
kings tried to take some of his territory – perhaps because
these kings were accustomed to fearing the Mauryan monarchs
and thinking them strong.

The resulting peace helped extend economic prosperity. Ashoka relaxed the
harsher laws of his grandfather, Chandragupta. He gave up the kingly pastime
of hunting game, and in its place he went on religious pilgrimages. He began
supporting philanthropies. He proselytized for Buddhism, advocating non-violence,
vegetarianism, charity and tenderness to all living things.

Ashoka had edicts cut into rocks and pillars at strategic locations throughout
his empire, edicts to communicate to passers-by the way of compassion, edicts
such as "listen to your father and mother," and "be generous with your friends
and relatives." In his edicts he spread hope in the survival of the soul after
death and in good behavior leading to heavenly salvation. And in keeping with
the change that was taking place in Buddhism, in at least one of his edicts
Ashoka described Siddartha Gautama not merely as the teacher that Siddartha
had thought of himself but as "the Lord Buddha."

The story of Ashoka as a child giving a bowl of dirt to The Buddha,
the child dreaming that the dirt is food. The Buddha, who has become
a god, foresees that Ashoka will rule India and spread the Buddhist
faith. A story that develops by the 100s BCE.

Ashoka called upon his subjects to desist from eating meat and attending
illicit and immoral meetings. He ordered his local agents of various ranks,
including governors, to tour their jurisdictions regularly to witness that rules
of right conduct were being followed. He commanded the public to recite his
edicts on certain days of the year.

Ashoka's patronage of Buddhism gave it more respect, and in his empire Buddhism
spread. More people became vegetarian, and perhaps there was some increase in
compassion toward others. He was not championing the cause of a jealous god and was able to plead for tolerance toward Hindus and Jains. He must have realized harmony as benefitting his rule: he claimed that the Brahmin's creed deserved respect, and he included Brahmins
among his officials.

Not all Brahmins returned Ashoka's kindness. They were displeased with Ashoka's
campaign against their sacrificial slaughtering of living creatures. But Ashoka's
opposition to such sacrifices did please the many among India's peasantry who had lost animals to local Hindu officials.

Ashoka sent missionaries to the kingdoms of southern India, to parts of Kashmir
in the northwest, to Persia, Egypt and Greece, but, as Christians were to learn,
old habits are not easily broken. Buddhism outside his kingdom took root only
on the island of Lanka.

With Ashoka's Buddhism there was little change regarding work, taxation, class relations, government bureaucracy and village politics. Whether prostitution had ended is unknown. In religion,
old habits continued among Buddhists, as they looked to Brahmins to conduct
those rites associated with births, marriages and deaths. Ashoka attempted to resolve differences among the Buddhists – as the Christian emperor
Constantine would among the Christians – but conflicts among the Buddhists
remained and would grow.

In the final years of his reign, Ashoka withdrew from public life, and after thirty-seven years of rule, in
the year 232, he died. Memory of his reign was to be kept alive by the sculpted pillars with his messages that he had spread across his domain.

During the reign of his
heirs the empire began to split apart, including the breaking away of Kalinga.
Why this happened is unknown. Buddhist writings suggest that decay had come
before Ashoka's death. Some scholars attribute the decline to economic pressures:
revenues from taxing agriculture and trade that were inadequate in maintaining
the large military and army of bureaucrats. Perhaps palace politics reduced
the ability of Ashoka's heirs to govern. Perhaps Ashoka's heirs inherited from Ashoka a pacifism that discouraged their using force in keeping
the Maurya Empire together. Whatever the cause or causes, regions within
the empire asserted their independence, and the empire disintegrated
while the Maurya family, in Pataliputra, continued to rule.